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Buying advice for Golf Rescue & Hybrids

Hybrid clubs earned their name by looking like a mix between an iron and a wood. However, this is not their only name, and hybrids are also known as utility clubs, rescues, safety and trouble clubs.

There are two types, the hybrid iron and the hybrid wood. The former more closely resembles an iron is appearance and performance, while the latter resembles a fairway wood, but both still incorporate characteristics of iron and wood.

Who should use a hybrid?

Hybrids are occasionally associated to high handicappers - however they are legal on tour and used by players at all levels. And with a limit of 14 clubs in your bag, the hybrid can be a versatile space saver, rendering other clubs obsolete.

Examples include hybrids typically replacing long irons (1-3) and even some mid irons (4-6). By allowing a longer club with greater hitting area, these clubs are both longer in distance and much more forgiving. Generally they can be played from the tee, fairway and make a perfect rescue club from the rough.

Hybrids Can Be Used For All Sorts Of Shots

Many people use hybrids on long fairway shots as they allow better accuracy than fairway woods. This is because they are slightly shorter in length, and therefore much easier to control, even with a heavy steel shaft.

Additionally, hybrids can hit a ball from fairways and the rough as well as an iron, and are easier to hit than woods. Like many of the drivers available, some hybrids have adopted strategic weighting to benefit slicers and hookers.

As well as being excellent replacements for the low and mid irons, hybrid clubs are often used as chipping clubs around the green.

With a low profile sole, they allow a greater margin of error (forgiveness) than irons and wedges, and minimise the chance of hitting the ball terribly (duffing). Todd Hamilton capitalised on this using his hybrid to beat the competition in the 2004 Open Championship, chipping consistently with it.

How the hybrid design benefits your game

With the weight moved toward the back and sole of the club the ball is given a higher trajectory which allows easier approaches from distance and greater carrying distance compared with irons.

The club is also given the benefit of more perimeter weighting than an iron, yet keeps the same small profile of an iron. With the weight distributed around the perimeter, this means that the shots that impact away from the sweet-spot of the club go further than those from most irons, as well as straighter.